Should school districts give iPads to kindergartners?

The Associated Press reported yesterday that the school district in Auburn, Maine will hand out iPads to nearly 300 kindergartners, confident the education apps will accelerate their learning.

Maybe they will, and certainly teaching technology skills is critical. But can we have any true sense of the risks in handing the gadgets to five-year olds, when the product didn’t even exist 13 months ago?

A number of studies have begun to raise concerns about the impact of pervasive technology use on our brains, finding that the sort of distractions that smart phones and social networking present can actually hinder memory and performance.

These are particularly important issues for children, given the amount of electronic media they consume.

A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation released in January 2010 concluded that 8-18 year olds devote an average of seven hours and 38 minutes to entertainment media per day. But because they dedicate so much of that time using more than one medium at once — say, scanning Facebook as they listen to music and chat with friends — they actually pack in about 10 hours and 45 minutes of content in that period.

That’s up considerably from just five years earlier, when kids were consuming an average of eight hours and 33 minutes of content in six hours and 21 minutes.

Look for my column on Sunday, in which I explore these issues — and what can be done about them — in greater depth. Meanwhile, do you think it’s a good idea to give iPads to kindergartners?